The influential Grattan Institute think tank has called on the panel reviewing Australia’s Renewable Energy Target (RET) to expand the target to take in non-renewable sources.
The Institute also called on the panel, set up by Australia’s conservative Liberal-National government, to protect existing investments should the RET be changed.
The Grattan Institute is an independent think tank dedicated to developing high quality public policy for Australia’s future.
Fairfax Media reports the institute in a submission to the RET review panel, said ‘careful’ expansion of the target to non-renewable sources of emissions reduction could “form the basis for a credible long-term climate change policy, with bipartisan support.”
The think-tank also called on the panel to honour, or ‘grandfather, existing projects in the event of a target change.
“Regardless of the forward target, existing arrangements should be grandfathered or preserved to honour existing contractual and related investment decisions, to prevent unpredictable tampering (with the targets),” it said, according to Fairfax Media.
The lack of bipartisan support for clear policies to tackle climate change will make it difficult to justify further investment in renewable energy, the Grattan Institute told the government panel.
With the conservative government favouring its Direct Action plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the existing carbon price laws, this had created ”unmanageable risk” for investors in the renewable energy sector, it told the review panel.
”A carefully crafted expansion of the renewable energy target to include non-renewable sources of energy could form the basis for a credible long-term climate change policy, with bipartisan support,” it said.
Current government policy is for renewable energy to supply one-fifth of the country’s electricity by 2020, although declining demand may result in renewable energy exceeding this target.
This possibility along with the cost of renewable energy has prompted the federal government to review the existing policy.
The existing policy is aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 5 per cent below the 2000 level by 2020.
